When I came home from class this afternoon, one of my Pepper Corys was stuck to the side of the filter intake. I took my net and gently moved him away from it. He then slowly fell to the bottom of the tank and landed normally. He will not move around (occasionally moving around the tank to a different spot). He has been in the same place for awhile and is breathing heavier than the other Corys. I feel that if he was healthy, he would have been able to get away from the filter. That leads me to believe that he might be ill. I don't know how long he was stuck to the filter either. He is just sitting on the bottom, being still while the other Corys rummage through the sand acting normal. What do I do about this? I just got the Corys yesterday.

If there are no real visible signs of illness it can be really hard to say what needs to be done, he might have just had alot more stress acclimating then the other corys, the best you can really do is to cover the filter intake some how so it wont happen again, create a stress free environment for him and keep the water super clean. All that being said I've notice when fish reach this stage its usually dose not end well.

Depending on how he is doing tomorrow, you may want to return him. The stores usually ask you for a sample of your water to be brought in with your fish. I would think that he is stressed and may need time to settle. Can you reduce the intake flow so that he doesn't get pulled into it?

Update: So after about a few hours of sitting on the bottom of the tank, he started moving around and actually digging around like the other Corys. Ever since, he has seemed normal and is not showing signs of illness. He has not gotten stuck since, either. He seems fine, which is unusual. I'm still a bit confused about what happened. I'll keep this posted if something bad happens!

Bad news: After all of the (what seemed to be good) news, he got stuck in the filter again. :/ I came home from class again today to find him stuck in the filter. This time when I released him from the filter, he was limp and slowly floated to the bottom. Once he hit the bottom, he swam a little but was worse looking than last time. I took him to the LFS and told them that I didn't want him anymore because every time I left for an extended period of time (several hours) he just got stuck again. He obviously is not in good shape when he can not get out of the filter intake. I cannot adjust the strength of the intake so that is out of the picture. The lady at the shop set him up in a small hospital tank and told me to come back within a few days to see what happens. If he makes it, I'll let them keep him. If not, oh well :(

Thats awesome, stick with that pet shop, if thats what the lady really did. Its nice to see a pet shop that compassionate about even just one little fish, most would take them from you then dispose of them later.